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Blogger Assessment Day

So as another Archive opens for June 2013, and after five months of slaving away on over 90 posts, I thought it were time to take a little time for some self assessment. This is my performance evaluation in the ring with Vince, so to speak. I set myself a target a few weeks ago to hit 2,000 views by the end of June 1st, which was yesterday. I failed by four views. I’m currently on 1,996 views. That’s a bit disappointing but at least by the end of the day I should be at the magic number, or not so magic, depending on your perspective.

The good news is that I’ve noticed some changes in trends over the last month. Organic search engine views are starting to overtake those created by publicizing on Facebook and Twitter every day. This can only be a good thing. I think I’m going to stop automatically sharing each post on social media soon, because all it does is piss people off and stops them from actually looking at your work. Maybe just a signature as the cover photo will do. It’s great to know that people from around the world who I’ve never met are starting to pick up my blog through Google and such. That’s the way to build a real readership. Long may that trend continue to grow.

I’ve also started to see the United States emerge as a key demographic. It’s now equalling my UK views on an almost daily basis. Obviously it is still dwarfed overall, but in recent weeks it’s been really thriving. That’s great news. One of the coolest things about blogging on WordPress is seeing the awesome map with coloured shades representing the parts of the world where you’ve gotten views, and the whole list of cool little flags displaying how many views per country. It’s such a rush seeing a new flag every few days from some random ass country where you didn’t even know people could watch wrestling.

As far as the top of my tree goes, let’s list my top 5 viewing nations (for all time): United Kingdom (1,433), United States (290), Germany (30), France (27) and Canada/India (12). That doesn’t really illustrate the growing American audience I’ve mentioned, but on a day to day basis over the past few weeks that is certainly evening itself out. Now just to show how awesome the flag thing really is, and the cool feeling you get when you see a new one of these countries on your stats, here is a list of all the countries from which I’ve gathered one solitary view: Grenada, Romania, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Estonia, Poland, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Libya, Lithuania, Egypt, Chile, Nepal, Ecuador, Morocco, Singapore, Pakistan, Malta and Sudan. Someone in Libya and Nepal viewed my blog. That is so awesome!

But aside from the cool, giddy side of things, my outlook is bleak at times. I do often wonder why I bother doing this with such a minimal audience, and no real support. It takes up a lot of my time, and when you hear the kinds of figures other bloggers get it’s just depressing. At the latest Birmingham 2022 workshop, you could hear people talking about getting hundreds of views per post. That’s just a pipe dream to me. My daily record is still 70 views from April 27, and to think I thought that was huge.

When you hear that kind of thing it makes you want to give up, it doesn’t inspire you. Or at least, it doesn’t inspire me. But I’m going to keep plugging away at least a little while longer for a couple of reasons. I have a lot exciting projects going on (more on this at the end of the post) that I’d like to talk about on here for my own peace of mind and perspective. And I still half-believe the hype that if I keep up the daily updates, I can build a steady fan base and actually make a go of this.

The thing that bothers me is that some people/organisations can get huge readerships with ease. It seems to all be about Facebook and Twitter ironically. All the people in that meet-up had thousands of connections in their network on social media. I on the other hand, am in the lower hundreds. I don’t like having thousands of Facebook friends. It’s lame and clogs up my feed. But I guess in this modern world you need to do that for advertising and publicity. It’s all about social networking online, and broadcasting your work that way. I guess I’d better have another real go at trying to get to grips with Twitter (Boy do I sound old?) – I’ve tried various times but still find the thing just weird and shit.

So I guess the conclusion I can draw from this assessment is that I kinda wanna give up, but I also kinda wanna carry on. I guess I’ll keep plugging away, at least for another few months and see how things are going then. I have a new challenge. 3,000 views by the end of June, but I really doubt I’ll achieve that. Good to aim high though, or at least high for me. It’s pennies to people with huge networks.

Anyway, here is some of that stuff you can expect to see on this site over the next month or two:

– More wrestling updates from myself, Steve (Ring of Honor Correspondent) and hopefully a new TNA Correspondent soon.

– Episode One of the Work.Rest.Play Tour movie should be up on here before the end of the month, so stay locked for that.

– Episode One of the wrestling Q&A/discussion program I’ve been meaning to make for quite some time should be online this month, including myself and maybe Steve too.

– More updates on my work for Area Culture Guide and the Birmingham 2022 project. As well as more personal posts and other stuff (football, etc)

So there is a lot in the pipeline. Whether or not this is worth all the hard work remains to be seen, but I’m going to solider on regardless. If you’ve enjoyed any of my work, please go ahead and follow, like or comment, and even share if possible.